


The girl with the most cake

by SharpestRose



Category: Popslash
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-07-01
Updated: 2011-07-01
Packaged: 2017-10-20 22:06:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,017
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/217560
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SharpestRose/pseuds/SharpestRose
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Fake it so real, and keep your enemies closer. No means no.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The girl with the most cake

"No."  
All over the world, cynical people make wry comments about how she doesn't know the word. She knows this. She told them to think it in the first place. They don't know that.  
But she knows the word all right. Snaps it out, her bedroom eyes steely and uncompromising.  
"No." she says again. "It's a _ballad_. I'm standing there in a gown. Don't feed me that line about the dancing leaving me breathless. I'm singing, and that's final."  
"Brit." her mother says in a voice that sounds gentle but scolds underneath the sweetness. "Sweetheart. Your voice isn't really up to this. It's an important ceremony. Why don't -"  
"If I don't sing, I'll just be standing there like a doll." she puts the thought out into the air and watches the flickering expressions on the faces around her, hastily disguised under placating layers. _But you are a doll._  
"And my microphone's going to be louder than my backup this time." she finishes icily, leaving the room with a toss of her pretty blonde hair.

They're almost right, because she's almost a doll. Eleven inches with poseable arms and legs. It was one of the best things ever, when she first held the tiny replica of herself in her hand. Little girls were going to be playing with _her_ , dressing her up for the prom and the beach and weddings, just like she'd done with Barbie when she was younger. She's got the whole set of herself on a shelf at home, different hairstyles and costumes. All the commercially released versions, and the extra ones she and her little sister made, astronauts and soldiers and doctors, stealing clothes off GI Joe and Ken. She loves them, but they're not her. She's not a doll.

She's got a laptop, connected to the world wide web, which she mostly uses to keep the schmooze currents flowing, a fawning email or two to whomever needs to be closest to her this week and thank-you notes to magazines that recount the pretty fairytales she sells them. She goes to her fansites to see what the audience likes and doesn't in her recent behaviour, but never lingers long. The pictures of her look ever more alien than the little plastic dolls sometimes, tiny lines and imperfections brushed away into nothingness, erasing the life she's leading and leaving behind nothing but the mask. She likes the photos on her walls better. Her favorite things on the internet are the games where she can hit the spacebar over and over and watch her face grow bloody and bruised. Not because she hates the way she looks, but because it's oddly satisfying to know that people loathe her so much. It means she's got them all in the palm of her hand, the haters as much as the lovers. None of them can help but look at her.

Sometimes she sits on her boyfriend's lap on their back porch and they have swearing competitions. He always wins. Sometimes her other friends are shocked at the way the two of them act. Her cousin asked her recently, during a tipsy game of truth or dare, if she was still a virgin. It's a stupid question that she won't answer in interviews anymore, selling that part of her was a necessary step in the climb to fame but now that she's at the top of the mountain she won't put her privacy up for auction. She doesn't know how to answer, anyway - she's messed around with Justin a few times, and Wade once when they were both incredibly high and giggly, but never actual penetration. She can't remember the analogy properly but thinks 'third base' is a fair approximation of where she's gone. Her hymen was an early casualty of gymnastics and dancing, and it's ridiculous to think that a young woman with her unique upbringing could still have innocence to lose. So it's a question she won't answer.

It had been her idea, to start dating Justin. He'd been her first kiss, way back when, and stories like that are publicity gold. But then she'd met up with him to discuss it, and his hand had been so heavy and cool in hers, strong fingers and a firm handshake, and he still believed in the basic goodness of people. It was such a shock to her, when she realised she was falling for him, that they kept it secret for a long time. She'd put so much of herself in the spotlight, it only seemed fair to keep her heart to herself. Now, everyone knows they're together, but can still wonder 'are they or aren't they?' about the closed bedroom doors. It's important to keep an air of mystery about some things, after all.

She likes having her nails done, candy colors that match her outfits. She likes singing, even if weeks go by where the only place she gets to do it is in the shower at home. She likes giving her sister makeovers with silly things like blue lipstick. She doesn't like reading books where the heroes end up unhappy. She cries in lame movies. Her toothpaste is green and white. Swimming is her favorite form of excercise. These things seem important because they are trivial. They are pieces of her that appear to fit together into a whole.

Once, she saw a documentary about a dance where the woman revealed very little of her skin, but left the audience thinking they'd seen it all. But, of course, they hadn't, because otherwise they wouldn't bray for more.

It's a good parable. She'd write it down, pin it to her dresser mirror, but she never keeps important things in plain view. Not where other people might see. She's a girl inside a doll, presenting an image for people to airbrush or bruise as they want, all the important things kept safe and private.

She's going to sing live, because she wants to. People might try to tell her she can't, but she taught the world a long time ago that she doesn't know what no means.


End file.
